I'm Contributors Editor at TheStreet.com, a business news, market data and stock analysis website. I was Editorial Director of Digital Book World, a website dedicated to covering the world of e-books and digital publishing. I've been a reader since 1986, a journalist since 2005 and an e-reader since 2011. I live and work in New York City.

HarperCollins, one of the country’s six largest book publishers, has two book publishing rookies in the c-suite: chief marketing officer Angela Tribelli and chief digital officer Chanal Restivo-Alessi, who both come from outside the industry (magazine media and banking, respectively). Macmillan recently hired Jeff Dodes as its executive vice president of marketing and digital media strategy for its St. Martin’s imprint (he comes from the music industry). And Peter Phillips is the new senior vice president and general manager of the digital media group at Marvel (had positions at companies like Fandango and Weight Watchers, previously), just to name a few. (Read more about outsiders in the publishing industry here.)

As the publishing industry continues to evolve, so will its leadership. Publishers will continue to look outside the industry for smart, strategic thinkers who can help solve their problems.

(Will this hurt the publishing industry? I don’t think so. Each time a digital copy is borrowed, it can’t be read by others. Say a library buys an e-book copy of The Hunger Gamesand lends it out to a patron and that patron takes a week to read it. Let’s assume, then, that the copy is read 50 times in a year. And let’s also assume some high percentage of those people wanted to read the second book in the series, Catching Fire. They can either wait in line at the library for it for who knows how long or go buy it for less than $10 on Amazon or any other e-book retailer. I see the readers not buying books as a small loss and the marketing for the second book in the series as a moderate gain. NB: This sort of armchair reasoning may not in fact reflect reality — but it’s my prediction, so I’m going to go with it.)

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